


Like Wings Unfolding in the Sky

by samyazaz



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8518159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samyazaz/pseuds/samyazaz
Summary: There's a golden eagle in the center of the room. A kestrel flutters its wings by the far wall, just next to where Pike's mace lies on the floor, and a hawk with rust-red tail feathers on the other side of the room, and in front of Vex, exactly where she had last seen Scanlan before the mage's spell blinded her, is a strikingly-marked magpie, hoping up and down and making the most ungodly screeching sound that Vex has ever heard.
Vex tips her head and looks up at the raven above her, laughing at her, and blows out a sharp breath. That's everyone accounted for, then. "Scanlan, there's really no cause for a temper tantrum. This could've been much worse than just polymorph."

  -a Wild Swans AU-





	

The sound of chanting rises over the sound of battle. A prickle crawls up the nape of Vex's neck as she risks a glance out past the crumbling wall she's taken cover behind, like a chill of foreboding but just a little too electric. She knows what magic feels like, the building tension of a spell before it's released.

White light builds between the mage's hands as he twists them into the complicated gestures of the spell. His chanting rises, only wavering a little when Grog roars and hurls his great axe at him, and strikes a glancing blow off of his shoulder.

Scanlan's voice rises up to match the chanting, keeps climbing to overpower it with a series of familiar notes that Vex recognizes as a counterspell. The electricity skittering across the back of her neck intensifies as Scanlan's magic joins the mage's, and tries to fight it back.

She ignores it and braces herself against the crumbling wall as she pulls an arrow, nocks it, and draws it back with a single, practiced gesture. She sights down the arrow's shaft, aims straight at the mage's heart, and lets it fly.

Just as she does, the magical tension that's been building suddenly bursts, and Scanlan's song cuts short. She hears him say, "Shit," just as the mage's chanting reaches a crescendo, and his magic surges out to fill the vacuum left by Scanlan's broken spell. He throws his hands out with a shout and the ball of light that's been growing between them explodes outward in every direction.

The last thing Vex sees before she's blinded by it is Scanlan spun to face her, one hand thrown out toward her and his lips curved around the notes of a spell that's drowned out by the eruption around them.

She ducks without thought, an arm thrown up to shield her eyes as the spell screams past overhead, braced for the impact of its effects. But she feels nothing except the thudding beat of her own heart against her breastbone.

She lowers her arm cautiously, peeks out past it to find that the blinding light is gone, her friends are gone, Scanlan, Grog, Keyleth, her _brother_ \-- all gone, and the world is warped around her, like she's looking at it through poorly-blown glass.

She throws her hands out before her and they come up sharply against a surface just at the extent of her reach, as smooth as polished crystal. That same electrical, magical sensation crawls up her arms when she touches it, and she pulls her hands away abruptly, but not quickly enough.

The crystal surface tilts, and she tilts with it. She scrambles back, arms wheeling for balance, but everywhere she puts a hand out she meets with the same resistance, like she's standing inside -- or _trapped_ inside -- a wizard's orb.

...A wizard's orb that is definitely starting to roll forward beneath the weight she accidentally threw against it. She tries to scramble back, muttering curses beneath her breath, but by the time she's realized what's happening momentum has already taken over. The orb gathers speed as it rolls over, and carries her with it, flipping her tail over tip and dropping her in a graceless sprawl into the bottom curve of the sphere.

"Are you _kidding_ me," she hisses as she untangles her limbs, flips her hair out of her face, and sets herself to rights.

A raven comes and lands on the sphere, hopping a little as it settles beneath its weight and sends her stumbling again. The bird tips its head back and gives a staccato caw like it's laughing at her.

"Great. I'm glad _somebody's_ amused," she mutters, and then stops and gives the bird a second look.

The room they pitched their battle in is closed, and there hadn't been any birds inside it that she'd seen. One dark raven she might have missed, hiding in the shadows -- but she looks beyond the raven, and beyond the glimmering surface of the orb she's caught in, and there are four more arrayed about her.

There's a golden eagle in the center of the room, near where the mage had been, though he's nowhere to be seen -- used the distraction to make his escape, no doubt. A kestrel flutters its wings by the far wall, just next to where Pike's mace lies on the floor, and a hawk with rust-red tail feathers on the other side of the room, and in front of Vex, exactly where she had last seen Scanlan before the mage's spell blinded her, is a strikingly-marked magpie, hoping up and down and making the most ungodly screeching sound that Vex has ever heard.

Vex tips her head and looks up at the raven above her, laughing at her, and blows out a sharp breath. That's everyone accounted for, then. "Scanlan," she calls, hoping that sound will travel through the wall around her. "There's really no cause for a temper tantrum. This could've been much worse than just polymorph."

The magpie stops hopping and looks at her, its head tilted to one side, then the other. It lets out one last, angry croak, and then hunkers down until it looks like a grumpy, feathered ball.

"That was quick thinking. I'm grateful," she tells him, gesturing to the walls surrounding her, that must've shielded her from the spell's effects and kept her from being transformed along with everyone else. "How long does it last, though?"

The magpie -- Scanlan -- sings a warbling song that means nothing to Vex. Which she supposes she should have expected.

She thinks back and tries to remember other times she's seen Scanlan cast this spell. She can't ever remember it lasting longer than a few minutes. Hopefully, then, she'll be free of it soon, and as soon as she can leave the mage's tower on her own two feet, they can go find somewhere safe to settle in and wait for the polymorph to wear off and everyone to resume their usual forms.

Almost as she's thinking it, the sphere vanishes. She drops a short distance down onto the floor, but catches herself. Vax, perched on the sphere above her, drops down and nearly gets his talons tangled in her hair before he manages to catch himself and fly over to the low wall at her back, which she'd taken shelter behind earlier.

"As graceful as ever," she observes dryly, and just lifts a brow at him when he fluffs the feathers around his neck and caws at her in obvious indignation. "Oh, I like this. Come along, brother dear." She crosses the space to him and holds out her arm to him. He gives her a look that plainly conveys the depth of his disgruntlement, but ultimately caves and hops up onto her wrist. His talons prick at her skin, but don't draw blood. "We need to find someplace to wait out this spell where this rather motley flock won't draw undue attention, and I've got all _sorts_ of things to say to you, Vax, so long as you're unable to sass back at me."

Vax caws again, sharper, indignant, and takes one of her fingers in his beak as though he means to bite her, though there's little pressure and no pain. When he's made his point, he settles himself more securely on her arm.

"Come on, the lot of you," she calls to everyone else. "You'll all be much less likely to attract attention once we get you outside of the city walls. We rather stand out, as it is right now."

Pike flies up to land on Vex's shoulder and nuzzles up against the side of her throat. Vex can't help but laugh and reach up with the hand Vax isn't occupying, careful not to dislodge anybody as she runs a finger over the feathers on her head. "You are the most adorable fierce predator ever, darling," Vex tells her, and Pike somehow manages to look inordinately pleased with herself.

When Keyleth tries to fly up and land on Vex's arm, though, she laughs a little and waves her off, though it disrupts Pike, who flies up and off to settle beside Grog, nearly tucked beneath his wing, and Keyleth comes to an awkward landing instead on Vex's head, her talons digging in sharply to keep herself steadied. 

"Oh, _Keyleth_ ," Vex sighs. "I don't think this is exactly unobtrusive, either."

Grog gives a vocalization that makes everyone jump, loud and piercing, and Vex isn't sure if it's the eagle shape that makes him look like he's scowling or not, but she answers him all the same. "You're _birds_ , Grog. None of us are in any shape to take that mage on again right now. We need to get somewhere we won't attract attention, and wait for you all to go back to normal, and then we can plan our next move. I know this isn't exactly in your vocabulary, but we need to be patient right now."

Grog gives his cry again, and hops a little bit, then takes into the air. There aren't any open doors or windows for him to leave by, though, so he ends up perched instead on the edge of the frame above the door they came in, peering down at her as though to say, _Well? What's taking you so long?_

"Keyleth, dear, do you mind?" Vex asks, and when Keyleth preens at her hair a little and then takes to the air, Vex transfers Vax onto her shoulder and opens the door for the rest of them.

She waits for them all to fly out and then follows behind the last of them. She gives a glance over her shoulder as she steps through, at the chamber that had been full of her friends and of activity just moments ago. Now there's a few arrows embedded into the walls, a long, black scorch mark across the ceiling from one of Keyleth's attacks, and a few feathers lying scattered about the floor, the only evidence of the battle that had been pitched here. They ought to stay and investigate, but traps are really her brother's purview, and she doesn't want to risk being caught in one, not when she's the only one of them still in possession of her own form.

Truthfully, what she fears the most is that if she lingers, the others will turn back before she's finished, and will want to take off on the mage's trail straightaway. She can't blame them for it -- a part of her wants it, too -- but she knows they need to retreat, to regroup. They need to rest, and go after this mage with a fresh plan and a renewed strength. They'll gain nothing by chasing after him half-exhausted as they already are.

Outside, the others take to the sky, all but for Vax, who remains on her shoulder, and grooms the feathers Vex wears behind her ear until they're smoothed and pristine. The larger form that is Grog wheels high over her head for a few minutes, as she starts down the street and tries to walk as though she's accustomed to carrying a raven on her shoulder and it's nothing anyone needs to take note of.

She's scarcely made it to the next block before Grog is so high overhead that he's a small black shadow highlighted by the sun, the others flying out in wider, lower circles, easier to spot against the blue of the sky. And then, all at once, Grog folds his wings in against his body and dives, spearing off toward a distant part of the city like an arrow loosed from her bow. Keyleth gives a cry and races off after him.

"No!" Vex hisses, and has no idea whether any of their senses are keen enough to hear her from such a distance, but it's as loud as she dares to be with others on the street around her. "Gods damn fucking sons of--"

_That_ attracts attention to her, the sidelong glances and disdainful sneers of those who feel that young ladies shouldn't know such words, much less speak them. But Vex isn't a lady, not here nor in Syngorn, she's just a woman bastard-born, and she knows how to deal with those who would turn their nose up at her. She meets their glances with a stare of her own and holds it until they grow uncomfortable, until they frown and huff and quicken their steps to hurry away from her. And when anyone who would have noticed her outburst is gone, she ducks down an alley, narrow and smelling of refuse and empty but for the two of them, and she takes Vax off her her shoulder onto her hand, and holds him in front of her so she can look him in the eye, and says, "Follow after them and stop them from this foolishness, won't you? We were outmatched by that mage when we were at full strength. Like this... They'll get themselves killed. There will be a time for revenge, but it is not now. Now, we need to be _smart_. We need to be safe." She takes a breath, deep and careful, the sort she takes when wielding her bow, to calm and quiet everything in her so her arrow will fly straight and true. Now her bow is at her back, her hands empty though she itches for the feel of wood and string and feather in her grasp. Still, she takes the breath, and her body and mind respond out of old practice, calming her racing heart, quieting her panicked thoughts. "I can't cross this city as fast as you can. I won't be able to get to them in time. Find them, Vax. Stop them from this madness. Bring them out to meet me beyond the city walls -- where we made camp last night, out by where Trinket's waiting for us. Don't let them get themselves killed, not over this." She lifts her other hand and runs a finger over the crest of Vax's head, petting him. His feathers are smooth and cool beneath her fingertip. She chokes back the fear and the tears that threaten behind her eyes. "Bring them back to me safely, do you hear? And bring yourself back safely most of all. If you get yourself killed I'll never forgive you, not ever."

Vax tips his head at her, tilting to one side then the other, and then caws quietly. He takes her finger in his beak, without any force at all, and then he hops off her hand and takes wing, darting off quick as a shadow. He's out of sight almost immediately.

She watches him go, and then stares after where he'd gone for a few more moments, straining for any glimpse of him. But there are always birds in cities, feeding off of the crumbs that humanity trails behind them, and she can't tell the distant, dark shape of her brother apart from any of the rest of them. 

She takes another half-a-dozen steadying breaths, tells herself sternly that she'll see them all in an hour or so, that she must, that any alternative is unacceptable. She's not going to lose any of them, not now. Not when Vax is the only family she has left, and not when she's just begun to open her heart to the others and start to think that perhaps family can be borne of those you shed blood with, as well as though you share blood with.

They've lost too much already, she and Vax have. The gods could not possibly be so cruel as to take from them again. She pulls her bow from her back and holds it across her body as she moves through the city, though it attracts unwanted attention to her as well, and cautious, wary looks. She doesn't care. The smooth, familiar grip of the wood against her palms is steadying.

She crosses the city and no one stops her, and perhaps it's luck or perhaps it's the bow in her hands and the look in her eye. The reason doesn't matter -- all that matters is that she finds their old campsite, where the grasses are broken and crushed from the half dozen of them trampling around there the night before. She doesn't have their tents or their supplies, those were with Grog, tucked away in the bag of holding where they wouldn't weigh them down. But she can make a fire and set some snares, while she waits, so they'll have supper when they return and she'll have something to keep her busy, in the meantime.

An hour on, the fire's crackling merrily in the middle of the campsite and she's caught a brace of rabbits, and she's starting to fear what might have happened if the polymorph spell has worn off already, if they all returned to their usual shapes while flying high above the city, or, if not, how long the distance from there to the camp might take them without birds' wings to carry them, and how treacherous a walk it might be.

Two hours on and she's found Trinket, not terribly far from the place where she'd directed him to wait for them, or perhaps he's found her, drawn by the smell of the rabbits roasting over the fire. She rubs his nose and scratches her fingers through his ruff and feeds him some berries she gathered while checking her snares -- which is a poor consolation with the scent of rabbit on the air, she knows, but he endures it with only a gusty sigh and slight rumbling. And fussing over him keeps him distracted from the fear that sits on her breastbone like an anvil, its weight growing with every minute that passes.

Finally, when the forest is growing dark but the glimpses of sky overhead remain bright enough to reassure her that true evening is still a ways off, Trinket goes tense beneath the cheek that Vex has leaned against his shoulder, and the hair along his haunches rises to stand on end as he gives a low, warning huff. Vex lays a cautioning hand on his flank and gets to her feet, hardly daring to hope.

The leaves around her rustle. A branch sways, casting shifting shadows across the forest floor. And then, all at once, they're there, a cluster of winged shapes making their way across the sky. She counts each of them desperately -- Grog's the largest, and so the easiest to spot, and there's Pike flying with him, just a little beside and behind. And the hawk that is Keyleth comes through the trees instead of the sky, darting from bough to bough, the red flash of her tail like a flickering flame through the leaves.

Scanlan flies behind Pike, trailing her and giving a cry that sounds like a middling imitation of a kestrel's ferocious shriek.

She doesn't see Vax until he swoops out of the thick shadows between the trees, an arrow fletched all in black, and swoops up to come to a landing on her shoulder. His talons dig in, probably draw blood and almost certainly pierce holes in her shirt that will need mending, but she's so glad to see him, to see them all, that she can't even bring herself to give him shit for it.

In the better light of the campfire, she's able to see that they have not made it back to her unscathed. There's a smear of crimson across Grog's breast, a ruffled place on Pike's wing where it looks like she may have lost a few feathers in a skirmish, a general harried, anxious air about them.

She loses the air from her lungs all at once. "Oh, you _idiots_. Is everyone all right?"

Vax caws and she thinks -- she hopes -- it's meant to be reassuring. When she moves to Grog and says, "You're injured, let me see," Grog hops out of her reach and nudges her hand away with his beak, then puffs up his chest like he's proud of the wound.

Of course he's proud of the wound, she thinks, and represses a sigh. "Pike, darling," she says instead, turning away from Grog. " _You'll_ let me look at you, won't you?"

Pike comes and lands on Vex's hand and lets her look, but she's puffed up just as proud as Grog is, and she gives a fierce cry that seems louder than her little shape ought to be able to contain. She looks well enough, though, despite the feathers she's lost, and she hops on Vex's finger and chirps enthusiastically, as though carrying on her half of a conversation and either unknowing or uncaring that Vex can't understand a bit of it.

"I'm sure you were wonderful," Vex tells her. "But you all might have a little care with your lives, and spare my poor heart."

Keyleth gives a call that sounds sarcastic, her head tipped to the side, and Vex imagines she's saying, _When have we_ ever _taken care with our lives?_

"Just this once," Vex murmurs, and lets Pike take flight from her hand. She flies off and lands on Grog's back, dwarfed by his size. He seems unperturbed by her presence, and it makes Vex smile. "Just this once, until the spell wears off, won't you all please _try_ to exercise a little caution?"

She leaves it at that, and doesn't wait for a response, because she doesn't truly expect one. It's the sort of request that they would all -- her included -- have scoffed at, if it had been made by someone else. None of them have ever been terribly good at keeping themselves out of trouble.

She moves over to where Scanlan is perched on a stone at the fringes of the campsite, folds her legs beneath herself and sits so they're on a level, and asks in a low voice, "Scanlan. Is it... _normal_ for a polymorph spell to last this long?"

Scanlan tips his head back and forth and back and forth, then hops and chirps. She sighs and gives him a wan smile. "I wish I knew what that meant. This is really incredibly inconvenient, you know."

He chirps again and hops, comes closer and flies up onto her hand, and from there onto her shoulder, on the other side from where Vax is still settled, his feathers warm against the side of her neck. Scanlan chirps again, and pecks at her cheek, not like he means to hurt her, but enough that she lifts a hand to it and turns her head to look at him.

"I think I'm going to assume that was meant to be encouraging."

Scanlan chirps again, shifting his weight from one foot to the other on her shoulder.

"Do you think it'll wear off tonight?"

He spreads his wings a little, and the feathers of his tail, and does a little bobbing gesture that looks like the mating dance she's seen some birds put on. She hopes that means yes. 

"Good," she says, decisively, because there's no point in dwelling on things that may not even come to pass. "Because I think if I have to go much longer with only myself for company, I might officially lose my mind."

Vax caws a protest, right in her ear, and gives a low, laughing cackle when it makes her jump. 

"That's very funny." She waves a hand at him to shoo him off of her shoulder. "You can go catch your own supper, then, if you're going to be like that."

He hops over to the fireside instead and starts pulling pieces of meat off the rabbits, and birds don't have much in the way of expression, but she's pretty sure he's doing it defiantly. She's very sure that if he were human right now, he'd be smirking at her, the tilt of his eyebrows just daring her to retaliate.

She tosses a small pebble at him, close enough to make her meaning clear without actually risking harming him, then comes forward and shoes him away so she can pick the meat off of the bones and divide it up between everyone. It's not enough to keep any of them full, but it should stave off the worst of the hunger pains, at least until the spell's worn off and there will be half a dozen hands to share the work of foraging and hunting.

Grog gives enough of his share to Pike that Vex worries he won't have enough left to fuel his sizeable form, but when she says so, he gives a piercing cry and ignores Pike's attempts to return to him what he gave her.

_Suit yourself,_ Vex thinks, and sits cross-legged amongst the rest of them to eat her own supper. Sh  
e's scarcely gotten settled before Trinket ambles over and drops down at her side. "Hey, buddy," she says to him quietly, and buries her fingers in his ruff.

The forest grows dark as the glimpses of sky overhead turn to crimson and orange. The flickering light of the fire dances across their little campsite, turning everyone's feathers to flame and reflecting gold across their dark eyes.

And as the colors fade overhead and the sky darkens to sapphire, then to cobalt, Vex leans back against Trinket and watches it change, watches the stars come to life like tiny, distant points of candlelight.

There's a noise a little like the rustle of feathers and something heavy hitting the ground, and then the sounds of breathing that seem as loud as shouts in the night. Vex bolts upright, tears her gaze down from the sky and stares around the fire into the familiar eyes of her friends, most of them sitting on their haunches and looking chagrined as they pick themselves up onto their feet or settle themselves more comfortably on the ground around her.

They bear scratches, a few bruises, a bit of abraded skin across Pike's arm where the missing feathers had been. But they're smiling, most of them, but for Grog, who has somehow managed to end up sprawled on his back and struggling to get upright like an overturned turtle. Vex covers her mouth with a hand to hold back her laughter, but then looks around the campfire again, at all her friends sitting there, mostly well, and she drops her hand and lets it out, lets herself laugh with the strength of her joy and her relief. "You are all all right?"

There are murmurs and nods of assent through the group. Vax brushes his cloak back over his shoulder and comes to sit next to her, his shoulder pressing in comfortingly against hers. "You're a shit, you know that?" he says, and his voice is warm and familiar and close.

She gives another bubble of laughter and kicks her feet out, stretching them out alongside his so the fire can warm her toes through her boots. "Yes, I know. Likewise."

She doesn't speak much as the evening wears on towards night. The others are talking, to her and to each other, talking about nothing of consequence or about their foolhardy chase across the city earlier, or just muttering dire threats against the mage who bested them. She's just glad to hear them talk, glad for an end to the silence of her own thoughts broken only by the whisper of feathers or a bird's call.

Even as night deepens, no one makes noises about heading to bed until the hour's grown very late indeed, and she can't know the reason for it but it pleases her to think it's because they're all just as glad to be back with each other, to be able to converse and enjoy one another's company. Eventually, though, exhaustion wins out in the end, and they all grow quiet and sleepy and start discussing shifts for the watch.

"I'll take first," Vex murmurs, stretching her arms up overhead to ease away the knots that a day's worth of tension has made of her spine.

"No, you should sleep," Pike protests. "You've been taking care of us all day."

" _I_ didn't fly halfway across the city and back," she points out. "And get injured doing it besides. I'm taking the first watch."

"I'll join you," says Vax, no doubt or hesitation in his tone.

"Actually." She glances sidelong at him. "I was hoping Scanlan would take it with me."

Vax looks bewildered, and then affronted. Before he can say anything, she lays a hand on his arm, tells him quietly, "Go sleep, brother. You need it. I'll wake you for the second shift and you can watch over me like the creepy overprotective brother you are, all right?"

He relents, though he makes his displeasure about it obvious. While he gets himself to his feet and shakes the dust off of his cloak, Vex turns to Scanlan. "Will you take the watch with me?"

He looks nearly as baffled as her brother, but recovers himself after only a moment, and gives her an easy, one-shouldered shrug. "As you like." He waves a hand at the others with that charming smile of his, says, "Go on off to bed, kiddies, mom and dad will keep you safe."

Vex wrinkles her nose as the others take their leave one by one, and Grog pulls bedrolls and tents from the bag of holding to distribute amongst them. "We are no one's parents," she sniffs. "And certainly not together."

Scanlan just shrugs again and comes around the fire to sit beside her. His voice drops to a pitch that won't carry to the others at the edge of the firelight, for her ears only. "You didn't ask me to stay for my charming personality, I don't think."

She takes a careful breath and lets it out, and doesn't meet his gaze but says down into her knees, "I was hoping-- could I ask you a question?"

"Certainly."

"Why..." There's a fraying spot of fabric on the thigh of her trousers. She's going to have to patch it soon. She prods at it with a finger and works the hole a little bigger. "Why did you cast that spell on _me?_ "

Scanlan's quiet for a long moment, long enough that she glances up at him sidelong and finds him watching her with a curious expression. When he catches her eye, though, the expression vanishes, and he shrugs again, smiles, jokes, "Don't take it personally. No one else was close enough."

He's trying to make it seem like it was circumstance, like it wasn't a choice made with decision and intent behind it. But they've been traveling together for a little while now and Vex is starting to be able to see past the facade. She gives him a faint, lopsided smile through the falling cascade of her hair and says, "You could have cast it on yourself."

For just a moment, the mask drops and Scanlan meets her gaze, quieter and more sincere and startlingly more intense than he usually lets show in front of any of them. "I could've," he admits with a little tilt of his head. "But you were the better choice." Then that Scanlan is gone and the mask is back in place, the grin, the cocksure demeanor. "Besides, then _I_ would have been the one to have to take responsibility for everyone else." He gives an exaggerated shudder. "No thank you. Better you than me."

She nods and takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders. "Thank you, Scanlan."

A hint of that former Scanlan, the true Scanlan, shows through in the creases that form at the corners of his eyes, the lift of his brows, the tilt of his head as he inclines it to her and says, "Thank _you._ "

They pass most of the rest of their watch in a companionable silence, exchanging occasional quiet words but otherwise keeping their eyes and ears trained on the forest around them. When their watch is over and nothing more sinister than a few rabbits, a fox, and a skittish dear have wandered past their campsite, Vex rises and stretches, gives Trinket a little nudge to wake him from where he's been slumbering, curled at her back to keep her close and keep her warm, and moves quietly toward Vax's tent.

She wakes him with a hand on his shoulder, doesn't flinch when he comes awake with a start and a hand reaching for his daggers. "It's your turn," she says in a whisper.

He blinks sleepy eyes at her, then passes a hand over his face and nods. "Right, right. I'm coming."

"Take your cloak," she tells him. "It's cold as shit tonight."

"You can have the tent. It'll keep you warmer."

She shakes her head. "Then where will you sleep after your watch? I'm going to sleep with Trinket anyway. He's warmer than your dumb tent." She pushes at his shoulder again. "Go on. Wake me up if there's anything at all, you hear me? Don't play the hero."

"When have I ever done that?" He ruffles her hair as he slides past her out of the tent, and she backs out, then leads Trinket with a hand in his fur over to a clear spot amongst everyone else's tents. He settles down and stretches out with a low, satisfied rumble, and she curls in against the soft fur of his belly, where the fire warms her from the front and his steady presence keeps her warm from behind. It's been a long, trying day, and in moments she's asleep.

She wakes with the thin, morning sunlight on her face and opens her eyes to the sight of five birds arrayed on the packed ground of their campsite, blinking at her. An eagle, a kestrel, a magpie, a hawk, a raven.

"Oh _shit_ ," she says, and buries her face in her hands.


End file.
